A Foreign Service Christmas--The Good and the Bad

     I'm looking at my tree, and I am really happy.  It isn't perfectly decorated or color coordinated.  It leans a little bit and is totally disorganized, and I love it.  This is the first time in two years that we've had our entire Christmas decorations collection together under one roof, and that's really exciting for me because I absolutely adore decorating our tree every year.  My absolute favorite part of the Christmas season is unwrapping my ornament collection.  I have an ornament for every single year I've been alive.  It was a tradition my grandmother started on my first Christmas, and I look forward to each one.

I still have that ornament.

I have an ornament on my tree that represents each milestone of my life: my first car,  our trip to the Bahamas,  my child's first Christmas,  etc.

This is from the year when my parents bought our house in Napoleonville.

Here is my college graduation ornament.

These are from the year we moved to Washington ,D.C.

I got this the year of my wedding.

This is from our first Christmas together.

Here is the ornament from my first pregnancy.

My ornaments mean the world to me.  I look forward to unwrapping each one every year because they all hold a particular memory or timeframe or story for me.  I find it difficult to let my children have anything to do with them, because I worry about them getting broken.  I mean, my Rainbow Brite ornament is irreplaceable, as it my Muppets ornament.  I've gotten a little better about it over the years, and I try to make sure that my boys have their own ornaments to put on our tree each Christmas.

I haven't counted my ornaments, but I know I left one or two behind at my parents' house when I moved out.  My little red car ornament (from the year I got my first car) never made it when I moved out, and I hate that.

     I'm taking you on this trip down my personal "Memory Lane" to discuss not only my family's Christmas traditions and but also to say that keeping Christmas traditions alive in the Foreign Service can be really tricky for those who celebrate it.  Why? 

     1. Well, while it's different for every family, let's start with the fact that the majority of our diplomats living overseas (and also in Washington, D.C.) are going to be celebrating without their extended families every year.  Yes, of course, many take leave and buy tickets home (which can run in the thousands upon thousands of dollars; many are in hardship posts and use their R&R tickets to go home for the holidays; and many have relatives that visit them at Post during the Christmas season.  This is all true.  However, many, MANY families and singles abroad will be spending the holidays without their parents, grandparents, siblings, and nieces and nephews; and they will do that year after year while serving their country.

     2. Well, there isn't a big box store like Target in all countries overseas.  There isn't a commissary at every post either.  You might really like having green bean casserole for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but when you live in a place where French's fried onions and Campbell's soups just do not exist, you have to plan a bit differently.  In fact, to be honest, you may just not get to have it.  I'm dealing with that right now myself.  I didn't plan ahead this year.  I got distracted and didn't think about ordering my cream of mushroom soup and fried onions in October so I could make sure and have them in November and December.  Yes!  It takes that long to order items from the United States during the holiday season. 

     3. One must plan very far ahead in order to make sure holidays in general go smoothly for their children.  In the past, I've always ordered Halloween costumes and candy the week the kids start school in September; and I've ordered Thanksgiving foods and Christmas presents the week after Halloween.  There is no such thing as reaping the benefits of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and getting items delivered in time for Christmas Eve.  I'm sure it's possible in some posts; it just hasn't worked in Europe the two times we've lived here.  Suffice it to say that this year, though, I just didn't get it done.  I don't know if my kids' most special Christmas presents will arrive on time or not.  They're well aware of the secret of Christmas and how fast/slow the mail moves this time of year; so they're going to be just as happy and proud opening up a picture of their present in the event it doesn't arrive on time.  There's also the problem with kids changing their minds so quickly.  My eldest told us in September that all his biggest wish was for a Lego Saturn V rocket kit.  Not cheap, but fine.  No problem.  It's on its way.  Well, about a week and a half ago, he decided he really wants a new cell phone (*sigh*). 

     4. Most of the folks back home don't think about the fact that it takes two months to ship Christmas presents to FS families overseas; so many of us end up celebrating Christmas again in late January.  It seems like most of Americans do their shopping at the last minute; so they don't heed the gentle nudges about sending things early.  This can be both disappointing and exciting for FS children.  The tree can look a little bare some years, especially for those families both living on one income for the moment and living with mothers who didn't order gifts early enough.  That said, it's thrilling when a surprise Christmas box arrives a few weeks later and the kids aren't expecting it.

     5. Even the most first-world postings are challenges when celebrating the holidays.  I try and make Christmas tree bark for my husband every year.  I figured that wouldn't be a problem here because so many people make candy.  Wrong!!!  Maybe I can get it together enough to buy the meltables and candy cane pieces when they go on sale at the beginning of the new year...It'll be just like my kids opening up their presents a few weeks after Christmas! (*Puts reminder on phone*)

     6.  A FS friend just reminded me that Christmas is either illegal or just not celebrated in many countries overseas.  I can't imagine encountering a challenge like that on top of what I've mentioned already.

     7.  My personal feeling about celebrating Christmas in the FS is that the challenges never end.  Either you're far, far away from your loved ones and your spouse's loved ones, and you have to plan meticulously and well ahead of time to avoid Christmas being a total bust.  Or, you actually get to go home for the holidays; but you still can't relax.  There's the two or more days of travel time.  There's the week of jetlag that you can barely even remember when it's all said and done.  There's the guilt you either give yourself or others give you and the pressure that comes with it to see every single member in your family and your spouse's family (ours live in different states BTW), which necessitates even more travel days.  There's sending all of your extended family's gifts and your spouse's extended family's gifts ahead of time, because you're absolutely going to max out your suitcase wait both going and returning.  There's the time that you have to take wrapping the gifts once you get "home" during your "vacation."  There's preparing your kids' Christmas Eve and Christmas Day gifts in the same manner: making sure they're even, making sure they're labeled and wrapped properly. 

     So, for me, when it comes to Christmas in the FS lifestyle, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.  If I go home, I still don't get to spend any time with my family.  I'm on duty: making sure Christmas is taken care of, travel days, jetlag, helping cook and clean, and trying to actually find time for conversations while getting everything done.  Or we can stay here and just pray our stuff gets here on time while simultaneously missing our families and missing out on everything back home.  The one thing I can count on to always be there during Christmas is my ornament collection.  And it sure is special to me.

Pere LaChaise

     My husband and I went to Paris for a quick weekend trip to celebrate our anniversary and have an early Christmas together.  It's always been my favorite city in the world and our favorite city to go together; so when I won two free nights at a hotel, we said, "Why the heck not?"  We started the trip with the usual baguettes and cheese plates and lots of stops at cafes.

     By far, the best part of our trip was when we went to the Pere LaChaise Cemetery.  It's where so many of "the greats" are enjoying their eternal rest.  There's Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Moliere, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and so many more than that.  You can read about a few of them here: https://listverse.com/2011/10/27/top-10-fascinating-graves-in-pre-lachaise/ .  I'd gone there a few times before this last trip, but this was my husband's first time in many, many years.  It was so beautiful and serene there.  We spent hours in the cemetery, traveling far off the beaten path to see the lesser-known graves that are crumbling and being taken over by Mother Nature.  Before, I'd always sort of rushed through just to say hi to Jim (Morrison of The Doors), the cemetery's most famous resident.  I think these pictures speak to the beauty and serenity of the place.

     I think the mausoleums that have chairs inside them are the most fascinating.  I don't know if they were for those sitting with the bodies during the first few days or weeks after their internment or if they are just worn out from those loved ones who came to pray for them.  Either way, they're fascinating and eternal reminders of those who were left behind. 

Foreign Service Animal Rescue

     Well, like most events in this lifestyle, what started out as a simple cat adoption turned out into a completely Foreign Service experience.  We'd been thinking about adding on to our family since our cat Tennyson passed away earlier this year.  My husband and I were doing our grocery shopping when we happened to run into a Hungarian woman who works with him.  She is involved in local animal rescue, so we asked her where the nearest shelter was.  As it turns out, the shelter she helps out was only a mile away from the grocery store.  The stars were aligning, indeed. 

     We drove down a muddy road in the middle of a field and came to a  huge fenced in place with tons of out buildings and, to be honest, a lot of people working there.  There were tons of animals, and they are appear very well-cared for.  I loved seeing like eight cats all sleeping together in beds and under a heat lamp.  The sick animals were caged in the office, where the head of the rescue group sits.  All in all, it seems to be a very good operation.

     A woman approached us right when we arrived.  She was extremely kind from the beginning, but she didn't speak English.  She asked all around until she found a worker who knew a little bit.  He asked us what we were looking for, and we explained.  We decided on a beautiful white cat that has one blue eye and one green.  He explained that she'd just arrived at the shelter the day before and hasn't had any shots.  He told us the price, and we found that 5000 HUF ($20) was very acceptable.  The woman we'd spoken to initially had us fill out some paperwork, and when we were getting ready to go, she asked my husband if he knew Spanish.  He immediately switched from Hungarian to Spanish, explaining how we lived in Ecuador for two years and both speak Spanish.  We all sighed in relief that we could actually communicate now.  Because of that, we were able to learn our new cat's story. 

     As it turns out, she did arrive at the shelter yesterday.  She arrived with her brother and sister.  They'd all been the pets of a very old woman who died recently.  The woman's neighbor had been feeding and caring for the cats, but it got too expensive; so she'd brought them to the rescue group's shelter.  The woman that we spoke to also told us that the car appears very healthy, though she hasn't had any shots or been microchipped.  We'd never have known any of this without finding out she spoke Spanish.  Suffice it to say that it was another totally FS experience we'll always remember. 

    Hedwig Havisham Brown    

Making Friends and French Cooking in Budapest

     Making friends in this lifestyle (the Foreign Service lifestyle) just isn't easy.  And, like making friends anywhere, it gets harder as we get older.  Now, don't get me wrong.  That doesn't mean we are lonely people or that we don't have friends; because that just isn't true.  But the truth is that your relationships and relationship-making skills do suffer when you move from place to place every couple of years like we do.  And, after a while, you can find yourself just completely ambivalent about starting the whole process over again.  My husband and I have to try very hard not to get completely ambivalent about making new friends.  One really interesting part of this lifestyle is that entire process.  In our old life, friendships happened completely organically.  Where I grew up in Louisiana, most of the people I knew had had the same friends since before Kindergarten, and they're still best friends.  Those friends you made as an adult you met in college, through other friends, at bars, at their kids' schools, etc.  That isn't really so in the FS.  The majority of people we make friends with (in my experience) are other Foreign Service Officers and their families.  When new people arrive, they attend community events and sort of look for their tribe.  There's a sense of "can we be friends" when you are introducing yourselves to people.  You try to see if there are enough similar interests to warrant a play date or an invitation to drinks.  Sometimes you find an immediate kindred spirit; sometimes it's like crickets chirping and tumble weeds blowing across the open plains.  At present, we are somewhere in between the two and kind of waiting to see what happens.

     I have had some incredible friends in this lifestyle.  Some (though not many) I know I could call on anywhere in the world if I needed help, and they know they could do the same with me.  Some were amazing friends whom I just lost touch with but still love dearly.  Some I've had falling outs with over the years and we chose to lose touch with one another.  Most of the friends I had before we joined the Foreign Service aren't really still friends anymore.  This lifestyle doesn't promote very healthy relationships outside of those in one's immediate household, and that's the sad truth of it.  We're just too far away, and the world doesn't wait for us back home. 

     The number and types of friends one makes in the FS can vary from post to post and depends on the type of community and security situation in each host country.  For instance, when we arrived at our first post in Ecuador, my husband was one of 14 American officers in our mission there.  Security was a very big issue, and many places and situations were just unsafe; so people had a lot of parties and get-togethers.  We had happy hours and play dates and all stayed pretty close to home.  This created a pretty tight-knit community of Americans and local staff.  Many of us bonded out of necessity rather than a genuine kinship, and that's perfectly acceptable under those types of circumstances.

     Our second posting in Canada was extremely safe, and the number of officers was in the hundreds.  We absolutely disappeared in our community and only had a few American friends.  Now, this doesn't mean that we disliked people or didn't get along with them.  What it means is that because it was so safe and the mission was so big, families just tended to "do their own thing" during the weekends.  There weren't many house parties or play dates because we didn't have to rely on each other as much for safety and entertainment.  My husband and I made friends with our Canadian neighbors (we never even learned our Ecuadorian neighbors' names but had an ongoing feud with them over their noise levels and all-night parties) and were genuinely devastated that we had to move away from them at the end of our tour.  It's hard to think that we may never see them again after sharing so many experiences and fond memories together.  That is a definite down side of this lifestyle:  We leave so very many people behind.

     Making friends in Albania was kind of a "ready made" thing because we lived on an all-American compound.  Our kids had 20+ kids to hang out with on any given day, and we were surrounded by all different personality types from which to initiate friendships.  Our mission was smaller than Canada but bigger than Ecuador, but we all got along for the most part.  People entertained at home and met for dinner and drinks at the many incredible restaurants and bars.  Some had house parties; some had wine tastings.  What I like about smaller posts (and, yes, "hardship" posts), is that there is always this sense of "We're all in this together."  No, we may not always like every single person.  We may despise a couple of people.  We might have personality conflicts or work conflicts and the like.  But, as I've said before, when it "hits the fan," you know that all of these people are in it with you.

     This is our fourth tour with the Foreign Service, and there is a brand new friendship-making hurdle to deal with.  Our post here is much bigger than in Albania (Hey, it's a major European capital!), and we live in a small apartment building miles away--and a 45 minute commute--from anything remotely resembling city life.  I'm pretty much the only person in my building who is home all day, and my kids are in a school that is a 45 minute drive away from home.  And, because of the State Department hiring freeze, I'm not able to work at the present time, though I am trying to find something on the open market.  So, here I am all alone for nine hours a day and trying to find myself and my new friend group all over again.  

     I don't believe I speak just for myself when I say that people in the FS have to sort of reinvent ourselves with every posting, because we pretty much do.  Every single aspect of our lives changes: the place changes, the situation changes, the culture changes; so we have to become completely different people to adapt to all of those changes.  I am in the process of reinventing myself here in Budapest.   This is the first time as an adult I'm increasing my peer group/friend group through use of the internet (and no I am not using Tinder or Bumble haha).   I've been actively using FB groups as a way to meet new people, and it's been going pretty well so far, though it's not something that just comes naturally to me.

     Meeting people and joining groups is not something I truly like doing, though they're wonderful for one's mental health.  I'm slightly introverted and terrible at small talk because I find it to be extremely tedious.  Attending cocktail parties and receptions for my husband's work are really difficult for me to get through, but I do all right with them.   That said, meeting people online and then just up and attending an event with them is something I never really saw myself doing, especially not at this age. 

     Before we left for Budapest, I asked on one of my expat/travel groups if anyone lived here.  One woman responded that she was moving in a few weeks and that she had two boys as well.  Fast forward a couple of months, and we set up a play date.  Not only are our children the same age, but they were also set to attend the same school!  Inspired by that, I joined several more FB groups, including a book club for women expats here.  I've met several people that way and am able to explore philanthropic pursuits as well.  I feel lucky, even though I am still a bit out of my element.  I keep wondering to myself, "Will this ever get easier?  Will this always feel like work?"  The truth is, the answer is "yes" to both questions.  It is what it is.  Sometimes it will happen organically; sometimes a posting will just be a posting.  I'm pretty undecided about what this one will be like.  

     That said, getting out of my comfort zone did help me to have one of the best experiences I've had in Budapest so far: French cooking class!  I met (online), of all people, another Louisiana native who is living here; and she invited to me to a pie making class.  I was super nervous, but I'd never made a pie from scratch before; so I signed up.  One hour, two buses, one tram ride, and a walk in the mud later (thanks Google), I arrived at a house.  I was petrified that maybe I was at the wrong place because there were no other cars there.  Imagine not speaking the language and knocking on (maybe) the wrong door.  I didn't even know how to explain myself if a Hungarian answered the door; so I just waited outside for someone else to show up.  This absolute stranger pulls up in her car and then asks me in French if I am there for the cooking class.  I replied that, yes, I was there for a class and then apologized for my awful French.  We both wondered if we were at the wrong address before just walking up and knocking on the door.  It was another totally Foreign Service experience that I will always remember and always be thankful that I had.  I had no idea what to expect; so imagine my surprise when two smiling French ladies answered the door!  It was an incredibly fun day of cooking and conversation, and I will never forget it.  I've included pictures of what we made below.

     All this to say that a lifestyle where you pick up everything and move to a different country every two or three years is not an easy one.  There are no guarantees other than the fact that you will have to get used to changes, and you will have to be open to new experiences.  That is what my husband and I signed up for, and we are still glad we did.  Sometimes, you're going to love everything about a place.  Sometimes, you won't.  Sometimes, you'll meet incredible people and make life-lasting friendships.  Sometimes, you won't.  As for this time and this place, the verdict is still out; and that is absolutely OK.  Regardless of what happens, we're having a good time.  We're having new and exciting experiences.  And it's still worth it.

Roasted Pepper and Tapenade Tart

Onion and Anchovy Tart

Leek, Bacon, and Goat Cheese Soufflet

Tarte Tatin